Wendy & Lisa

When Prince broke up the Revolution in 1986, guitarist Wendy Melvoin and keyboardist Lisa Coleman, friends since childhood, decided to team up for a new musical project. The two had grown up together in Los Angeles, where both of their fathers were session musicians and encouraged their musical development from a young age. Coleman joined the Revolution in 1979 for Dirty Mind, and Melvoin signed on in 1984; in addition to their instrumental skills, the two also provided some of Prince's arrangements. Wendy and Lisa played almost all of the instruments on their self-titled debut and co-wrote most of the material with ex-Revolution drummer Bobby Z. After backing Joni Mitchell on Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm in 1988, the duo added Melvoin's twin sister Susannah and recorded Fruit at the Bottom, a song cycle about the ups and downs of romance. Several more family members joined up for the widely varied Eroica, which mixed Wendy & Lisa’s disparate influences (funk, jazz, dance, pop, rock); k.d. lang also contributed vocals. Eroica followed in 1990, and though the duo were less busy during the decade, they returned in 1998 as the Girl Bros. ~ Steve Huey